The Kangkung coursing in our veins

SOME of AWANI’s viewers and readers out there may be too young to have had to depend on ubi kayu (variously also referred to as tapioca, cassava or manioc depending on geography) for sustenance. This was precisely the lot of many of their forefathers during the Japanese Occupation at the height of the Second World War in the 1940s.

My late granddad used to regale my siblings and assortment of cousins during our frequent balik kampung gatherings to our hometown in Alor Gajah in Melaka in our youth about tales of survival. He would tell us how it was, and tell stories of the humble ubi kayu being the staple by which the whole village of Kg Lendu got by.

The bulbous roots that had to be gingerly dug buried under foot were either boiled or braised over a fire, becoming the sole source of carbohydrates at the height of the Japanese occupation when local lives were intolerably, sometimes cruelly turned topsy turvy.

Vitamins came from its green and tender young shoots that were gently picked, doused in boiling water and you have a steaming mound of blanched local salad. Pound chillies with a bit of belacan (shrimp paste), toss in the mix an inch of overripe mango and hey presto – you have a dip for the pucuk ubi that has been known to wend its way on to the gold rimmed saucer of some Sultan’s dining table.

For grandpa, growing this vegetable fare was a no-brainer. The backdoor of the house opened to a paya (swamp); and I shall not reveal where or what the source of the pregnant body of water was. Suffice to say municipal services or local building and drainage bylaws were non-existent then. All that bathroom gunk and chicken entrails from the kitchen got dumped – somewhere!

So it goes without saying that the biological and chemical constituents of the nutrients feeding the pond is quite unedifying stomach churning.

Far from becoming a putrid patch, this was actually a floating field that became a convenient vegetable bed where shoots sprouted and greenery thrived.

The dominant vegetation that spawned in the form of unruly clumps of healthy green life was the humble kangkung.

Yes, that same vegetable whose price we have been sternly told over the weekend, had been vigorously held down by government efforts in the midst of rising prices elsewhere. And for that, we have been roundly berated for not recognising this effort. Be grateful for tender mercies I say.

The delicious irony is not lost even amongst those without the benefit of an academic bent in agriculture or; survived a trip to what is a sadly, grossly, unforgivably over-exploited Cameron Highlands.

For that we are expected to rejoice at the revelation that we have been wildly successful in throttling the life of some budding kangkung cartel before they got round to cornering the market.

We are not all townies whose only acquaintance with the limp kangkung is from the neat refrigerator rows in Tescos. Anyone who had the benefit of a kampong upbringing will know that the humble kangkung is one of God’s gift to anyone with less-than-green-fingers.

Just get a little bag of the seedlings from the supermarket, bury it in a pot and within a few days you’d see green shoots. Wait a few more weeks and the slender leaves are ready for harvest.

Out in the swamps, self-regeneration is the key to the kangkung’s thriving proliferation. The sea of green profusion requires no one’s labour. Just throw out the ends of the shoots after cutting off the top part out through the kitchen window into the swamp below! Yes, in not time the fine roots will latch on to the merest hint of an anchor in the watery environment and you have the initiation of a vegetable flotsam.